'A sense of relief': The state Public Education Department has opened a new Albuquerque office to boost employee ranks, morale

Just a few weeks ago, Angel Montoya was getting up at 4:30 a.m. every day just to get to work.

But she’s not a newspaper carrier, baker or in some other career that would demand such an early start. Montoya is a teacher engagement liaison with the state Public Education Department.

But because the PED’s main office is in Santa Fe, Montoya, who lives in Albuquerque’s North Valley, was forced to wake up several hours before her work day started just to catch a 6:30 a.m. train. After work, she often wouldn’t get home until 7 p.m.

“You’re living to work. There’s no work-life balance, it’s not healthy … whatsoever, and, honestly, I was considering looking at other options,” she said. “I want a life, not just a job.”

But in late October, the PED opened a new office in Albuquerque, near Jefferson and Masthead NE, to address the problems Montoya and many other Albuquerque-based administrators were facing, partly as an effort to bolster the department’s recruitment and retention.

Currently, the PED has 82 vacancies, Managing Director Seana Flanagan said. PED officials said many people who have departed cited the burden of commuting. (The governor required state employees to return to work in person earlier this year.)

“There is just a sense of relief, because I think it was impacting some people’s personal lives and their family lives,” Deputy Secretary of Teaching, Learning and Innovation Amanda DeBell said.

Flanagan said the department has seen an uptick in applicants and hires, and has dropped 2 percentage points off its vacancy rate since the beginning of October, around the time the PED announced the office would open.

Just over 100, or over a third, of the PED’s employees now work at the 17,603 square-foot office, Flanagan said, which currently costs the department roughly $340,000 per year in rent on a lease that will last through June 2029.

At times, employees do still need to travel to Santa Fe, DeBell said, because that technically is where they’re posted.

“This is just a satellite office where we are able to … lessen the burden of either riding on the train or doing the car commute,” DeBell said.

The PED also recently signed a renewable nine-month lease on an almost 2,400 square-foot office in Las Cruces for about $37,100, which employees moved into within the last three weeks. Both offices, Flanagan said, are aimed at listening to staff, bolstering the department’s ranks and extending its reach.

“First and foremost, opening the offices was about ensuring that we had been listening to staff and what their needs were and what they wanted,” Flanagan said. “(This) will be important for the growth of the agency as well as that representation around the state.”

For Montoya, the ability to work in Albuquerque has been a load off her shoulders.

“It’s helped quite a bit. I get four hours back out of my day,” she said. “I have a 10- to 15-minute commute every day to work … It just really creates a better life, all the way around.”